Requaero Probum
by evansentranced
Summary: Parolee Draco Malfoy has one last chance to redeem his family name: a Requaero Probum, a noble quest to prove his honor. And what could be more honorable than travelling to a tower to save a damsel from a curse? Harry/Draco (yes, it's slash) [A Shrek adaptation for HDOTP's HDEverAfter fest. I read the prompt, thought, BUT WHO'S DONKEY! and then had to write it immediately.]
1. Chapter 1

Ministry waiting rooms were hateful places.

Draco had the sense that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement designed their own tiny, cramped waiting spaces to be even more odious than the average, since the only wizards who usually had reason to wait for an Auror's attention tended to be criminals or parolees.

People like Draco, for example.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glanced with disinterest at the stack of Witch Weekly magazines on the coffee table near his row of chairs, and firmly avoided the gaze of the only other person in the room, Magnus Jugson. He'd been a Death Eater as well, and avoided a more serious sentence through a combination of wealth, lack of notoriety, and the pretense of a serious injury that limited his mobility and apparently also addled his wits. Draco didn't buy it for a second.

After another ten minutes of waiting with nothing to show for it, Jugson's wavery voice cut through the silence. "Draco, m'boy, I wonder if you could-"

"I really couldn't," Draco drawled, crossing his ankles and folding his hands over his stomach, giving the impression of relaxation even if the reality was impossible.

Jugson fell silent again, and Draco ignored his churlish expression. This might be his last meeting with his parole officer, and Draco wasn't going to fuck it up by fraternizing with someone who he, at least, knew wanted to get the old crowd back together and kick a few muggles around.

Draco had never been a muggle-kicker, himself. His family avoided hefty trouble because of Potter's testimony, which gave his parents the freedom to spend most of their time abroad and put Draco just a notch above sly old bastards like Jugson in the new order of things.

"Parolee Malfoy." Williamson's voice echoed through the quiet of the room, and Draco stood, brushing out his robes and straightening his back. Williamson's office was momentarily connected to this door, and when their meeting was at an end he'd end up in the hall near the lifts. They didn't want ex-Death Eaters roaming the DMLE at will, after all.

He smoothed his sneer into a bland smile as he stepped into the familiar, sterile office and shut the door behind him. Williamson gestured to the wooden chair opposite his desk and otherwise ignored Draco as he flipped through his file. Draco sat and looked around, noting that the walls and floor were still grey, and that the desk still lacked any personal touches.

Williamson wasn't the worst parole officer. He wasn't the best, but he didn't have the kind of blind bias against Draco that he encountered more often in the general public. The last time they spoke, Williamson confirmed that Draco had completed all the requisite requirements for an early parole termination. Draco was hopeful that soon, instead of being a model citizen with a Ministry-appointed leech on his shoulder, he could be a model citizen from the quiet, solitary peace of the Manor.

"Your petition was denied," Williamson said plainly, sans greeting. He glanced up from Draco's folder and handed him a roll of parchment that likely echoed his summary. Draco took it with numb fingers.

"You said my case was a good one," Draco responded, unrolling the parchment without really thinking about it. Large red letters slashed across Draco's own neat handwriting: REJECTED. "What happened?"

Williamson leaned back in his chair and sucked at his teeth. "Politics," he said, gesturing vaguely. "Timing. I believe Doge's exact words were 'I'm not letting another Malfoy slip through my fingers.'"

Draco grit his teeth in frustration. The things he wanted to say in response to that weren't best spoken in front of one of the few, if tenuous allies he had in this godforsaken bureaucratic hellhole. He inhaled slowly through his nose before speaking again.

"How can I appeal?"

Williamson squinted at Draco for a few seconds, which Draco tolerated with a polite expression.

"You're not gonna win an appeal," Williamson told him, still tipped back in his seat very slightly. "Not as it stands. The public doesn't want to hear that the Malfoys are off the hook. It's only been a couple years."

Draco balled his hands into fists in the folds of his robes. "You're saying that despite my good behaviour, despite that I've submitted to all the invasive rules and restrictions of this probationary period without complaint, despite my genuine desire to simply live out the rest of my life as a law abiding citizen-"

"Yeah, nobody really buys that, though," Williamson interrupted. His blunt honesty was something Draco liked about him, Draco reminded himself forcefully. He appreciated it. He truly did. He clenched his jaw with enjoyment of it.

Rather than asking if Williamson 'bought' it, Draco pushed onward to the pertinent question at hand. "What shall I do to convince them?"

Williamson flipped through a few pages in Draco's file, frowned to himself, then leaned back again. "Two options as I see it. I think you qualify for parole termination, Malfoy, and that you deserve it."

Draco felt himself relax marginally at the answer to his unasked question.

"But?" he prodded, when Williamson didn't continue immediately.

"But you're gonna have to prove it to the people making the decision, and that's not me," Williamson explained, scratching his ear. "So like I said: two options. All boils down to the same thing, though, and that's making the public decide you're not so bad after all."

"Two options," Draco repeated, not liking how long it was taking to get to the point. Williamson only tiptoed around particularly nasty topics. "What are they?"

"Option number one is reparations," Williamson said. "For you specifically, it wouldn't be anything your family couldn't afford, but-"

"-but we both know it's not just about me," Draco said rubbing at the bridge of his nose with a finger and thumb. He knew exactly where this was going. "My father's reparations as well, then. How much?"

Williamson sat forward as though to flip through Draco's file again, then shrugged and didn't bother. "To satisfy the public and the Wizengamot? The entire estate."

"The entire..." Draco repeated, feeling quite faint. "You mean the property, surely."

"And the vaults, and the gold inside the vaults, whatever heirlooms your family possesses, and the clothes off your backs if they can manage it," Williamson enumerated. As usual, when he stated harsh truths like this, his dry, objective tone made it all sound a thousand times worse to Draco's ears.

Draco shook his head slowly. "Option number two."

"Option number two," Williamson repeated, his slow delivery causing Draco to look up. Impossible as it might be to imagine, Williamson seemed to think this one was worse. "Is a Requaero."

Draco stared at him uncomprehendingly for a long moment. "A Requaero?" he repeated, when he found his voice. "The Ministry hasn't honoured a Requaero in centuries."

"Just two," Williamson disagreed. "Largely because they've gone out of fashion. I doubt it'd be an issue considering what you'd be doing."

"You've come up with the subject of my quest already?" Draco asked, crossing his arms across his chest even as he lifted a skeptical eyebrow. "Have you packed my knapsack as well?"

"There's a reason Requaeros have gone out of style," said Williamson, an unusual note of humour in his usually matter-of-fact delivery. "Not much to quest for these days."

Draco paused, his eyes falling to the desk as he thought. It didn't take long.

"No," he said, rising to his feet if only to physically express the sheer rejection his body and mind felt toward the very concept. "Absolutely not. I will not."

* * *

A knock sounded on the front doors of the Manor the next morning. Draco pulled them open to find one of the older Weasleys standing stiffly on the portico, wearing rougher than usual Ministry robes and carrying, of all things, a knapsack.

"Can I help you?" Draco asked irritably, tightening his morning robe around his shoulders and scowling at the elf who'd summoned him, standing just out of Weasley's line of sight. The elf bowed repeatedly and vanished, twisting her ears.

"As per Paragraph 182, subsection C of the Ministry Bylaws, I am the court-appointed witness to Parolee Malfoy's Requaero Probum, to ensure that the quest is enacted with due honor and virtue," Weasley recited, his shoulders thrown back and his nose in the air. It was his officious tone that allowed Draco to finally pinpoint which Weasley he was speaking with. He was the one who was Head Boy in Draco's fourth year.

Draco stared at him. "You have got to be bloody joking," he said. Weasley looked down his nose at Draco and adjusted his knapsack.

"I assure you that I am most certainly not," he said severely. "And your language will be noted in my witness testimony, Parolee Malfoy."

Weasley conjured a quill and parchment, which began scribbling away at his elbow.

"Right," Draco said, taking a breath and tacking on a charming smile. "If you'll just come this way," he hesitated, uncertain of Weasley's actual title within the Ministry and deciding to skip over it entirely, rather than inquire. "The parlour is quite comfortable, if you'll pardon my absence as I pack. I believe there'll be enough time to take tea before we go."

Weasley sniffed and nodded his assent, and Draco left him in the parlour as Maddy laid out an adequate tea service and inquired as to what else she could bring Master's guest.

"Bloody Ministry," he hissed to himself, storming up to his rooms and throwing the doors open. "Bloody Weasleys." He summoned a trunk and began throwing things at it. A house elf appeared and guided his choices neatly into place. "Of course it had to be a bloody Weasley!" He summoned a dragonhide knapsack and tossed it on the bed. "Bloody Potter. Bloody stupid famous heroic Potter." He paused and leaned against his desk, rubbing his face with both hands.

Williamson was correct that his options boiled down to poverty or Requaero. Draco railed against the notion with everything he had, but there was nothing else for it, except to spend the next ten years at the whim and under the scrutiny of the Ministry and its blind devotion to transient public opinion.

Two years were bad enough, and so here he was, packing his bags for a quest with a bloody Weasley to rescue Harry Potter from a fucking tower.

A fucking tower.

When Draco realized last night that this was going to be the way of things, he'd gone back to the Manor, poured himself a large glass of firewhiskey, and dug through a stack of old newspapers, gleaning everything he could about Potter's disappearance last year.

Disappearance was the wrong word. Every witch and wizard in the country knew his physical location, in a fucking tower deep in the Forbidden Forest. It was more that he wasn't coming back anytime soon, not without help.

Potter's Auror training had progressed to the point of shadowing real Aurors in the field when he and his senior partner encountered an unexpectedly powerful dark wizard, according to the Prophet.

In terms of the actual curses used, the details released to the public were hazy. In terms of results, Potter's magic apparently went haywire, in an explosive sense. No one could come too near to him without putting themselves at risk. Potter responded by locking himself up as far away from society as possible, for his adoring public's safety. They, of course, loved him all the more for his sacrifice.

Scholars and curse breakers (all Gryffindors, of that Draco was certain) had sought Potter out during his months of isolation, and to a one, they came back terrified, though their garbled accounts offered no firm details on what to expect when one arrived at Potter's Tower.

It made a wizard wonder why, exactly, the Ministry would think ordering Draco to bring him back would be any more effective.

He scooped up all the newspaper clippings pertaining to Potter from his desk and dropped them in the trunk along with a last few necessary items and a stack of books retrieved from the library that dwarfed the house elf who'd carried them in. Then he shrunk the trunk and fit it neatly in his knapsack, along with a small box that the house elves would keep stocked with his daily meals.

"Fucking Ministry," he muttered again as he changed into more appropriate robes for walking in a forest and holstered his wand. "Fucking Weasley." He shouldered his bag and stalked through the halls and down the stairs. "Fucking Potter." He threw the doors of the parlour open and gave Weasley a beaming smile and a courteous nod. "At your leisure. I hope I wasn't too long?"

Weasley had clearly been enjoying Draco's hospitality. All the biscuits were gone from the tray, and there were crumbs dotting the table. Draco firmed his smile and watched Weasley swing his knapsack over his shoulder, wincing as he missed the antique lamp by a hair's breadth.

Rather than answer Draco's question, Weasley said only, "Thank you for the tea," with what Draco viewed as a rather insincere expression, and followed him out of the parlor. Draco couldn't relax until they stepped outside, onto the part of the grounds where nothing was breakable and a mess was easily managed.

They didn't speak as they walked the length of the grounds. Draco even found himself thinking that it wouldn't be as bad as he'd thought, if Weasley could keep silent throughout the whole of the quest.

When they reached the gates, Draco glanced at Weasley. "Hogsmeade, then?" he asked, preparing to Apparate. Weasley cleared his throat, stopping Draco mid step.

"As a matter of fact," he said, managing to look down his nose at Draco again, despite only having half an inch advantage. "Hogsmeade is not our destination. Potter's Tower is a distance of forty kilometers from the village of Hogsmeade, and only twenty eight and a quarter from the Ministry-approved Apparition point which we will be using in accordance with the terms of your-"

"So no, then," Draco interrupted, his polite smile more of a grimace with teeth at this point. "If you'd just give me the coordinates, we can be off. I am so looking forward to this quest."

Weasley's expression frosted over. "Before I was interrupted, I was going to say that Potter's Tower is only twenty eight and a quarter kilometers from the Apparition point that the Ministry has approved for use by Parolee Malfoy and myself, Assistant to the Division Undersecretary of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Official Witness to Requaero Probum when said Requaero falls within the jurisdiction of said Department..."

Draco bit his tongue and tapped his foot through another minute and a half of self-righteous bureaucratic babble before the idiot finally mentioned the apparition coordinates. Without waiting for Weasley to even finish his sentence, Draco turned sharply and disappeared with a satisfying crack.

The coordinates were at the edge of a rocky cliff on the outskirts of a wild tangle of underbrush and tall grass that led to an even more wild and ancient wall of trees. Draco took a moment to be relieved that he'd worn his dragonhide boots.

Weasley cracked into the space to Draco's right and rounded on him with a kind of fury that reminded Draco briefly of his brothers.

"It is not within your rights to Apparate to any destination without the permission of the proper authorities, Parolee Malfoy!" he shouted, his face gone a splotchy red that clashed unattractively with his freckles. Draco took a short step back.

"I thought you were my witness," Draco said, aiming for reasonable and barely managing civil. "And you gave me the coordinates, doesn't that imply permission, er, Assistant Weasley?"

"Witness Weasley will be acceptable," Weasley bit out, still scowling. "And this insubordination will not benefit your petition for parole termination, Parolee Malfoy-"

"Just Malfoy is fine," Draco gritted out, stalking a few steps away from Weasley to search for a path into the forest.

"Parolee Malfoy," Weasley continued tenaciously. "I will have you know that as part of my duties as Witness, I will be making an estimation of your character and a cost-benefit analysis of the worth in allowing you your freedom after the completion of your Requaero Probum-"

There was no path. Draco snarled under his breath and cast a blasting spell at a patch of tall grass, forming a short trail and infuriating Weasley once more.

"That spell is not in your Ministry-approved lexicon," Weasley shrilled, snapping his own wand out to conjure up his notes, the parchment nearly ripping as the quill scribbled away furiously.

"Would you like me to cast lavare at the creatures we encounter in the forest?" Draco snapped, spinning around to face him head on. "Maybe all the werewolves really want is a bath, Witness Weasley. Or maybe you'll be doing all the work of this quest while I follow and observe?"

"A revised lexicon has been provided for the duration of your Requaero Probum, Parolee Malfoy," Weasley informed him, clearly just as infuriated with Draco as Draco was with him. It was small consolation, at least until he spoke again. "The revised lexicon in its entirety consists of one hundred and thirty three spells, twelve of which use is contingent upon the Witness's corroborative testimony that your life or mine was at risk at the time immediately preceding the casting of said spell, and that the spell, if appropriately cast, would be effective in reducing the danger to the Witness or yourself-"

Draco stared at him. His wand dangled from his fingers as Weasley went on and on, and in a small corner of Draco's mind, he pictured lifting his wand and stupefying himself, or maybe Weasley.

"The first spell in your revised lexicon is abrire, unrestricted use." The scroll that just appeared in Weasley's hands unfurled further. "The second spell is accio, restricted insofar as you may not summon any objects that are forbidden as per your probationary contract with the Ministry. The third..."

Draco's fingers twitched. Definitely Weasley.

* * *

When the twenty-second spell in Draco's revised lexicon turned out to be diffindo, Draco turned around and began severing grass in a straight line toward the forest. Apparently this was acceptable to Weasley, and he followed Draco, continuing his recitation in a clear, carrying voice. Draco wanted to tell the great idiot to shut up, but decided that he'd rather deal with whatever Weasley's voice attracted than with the shouting match and quill scratching that would certainly follow.

They reached the treeline and Draco paused, gathering his wits about him and readying his wand. The Forbidden Forest was malevolent enough near Hogwarts, where it at least gave the appearance of being pliable to the will of wizards. If this was the designated Apparition point, then a dozen wizards or more had been through here in the past six months. The land here looked as though it hadn't been touched by a wand in centuries.

"Spell number thirty is ennervate, unrestricted use," Weasley continued, blandly immune to the disquieting sense of being watched that prickled at the back of Draco's neck as he peered through the trees.

He firmed his grip on his wand and stepped into the forest, alert for the slightest sound. The scent of cold, damp dirt and moss filled his nostrils. Weasley trotted right in after him, having reached number thirty three.

Only a hundred left, Draco thought, and had the mad desire to laugh. Maybe he would accidentally push Weasley into a Devil's Snare.

With none in sight, Draco set his wand in his palm instead and whispered, "Point me."

As the wand spun in his hand, Weasley halted his recitation and skimmed ahead on his list. "Number ninety four, Point me, unrestricted use," he allowed, and Draco's mouth shifted into the shape of a smile, his eyes hard and fixed on his wand as it pointed due north.

"This way," he said, and set off toward Potter's Tower, Weasley in tow.

"Where was I?" Weasley asked rhetorically. "You'll want to hear the rest of your lexicon... ah. Spell number thirty five is expelliarmus, restricted emergency use only against a hostile aggressor, with corroborating testimony from the Witness..."

* * *

Weasley finished his recitation of Draco's lexicon as the sun reached its height in the sky. Nothing had attacked them thus far in spite of Weasley's best efforts. Draco would gladly thank Merlin for small mercies.

They fell into a silence, which Draco cherished. He kept his wand in hand as they walked, picking their way through dense underbrush and exposed roots, and sometimes detouring around dangerous looking patches of weed. Weasley finally drew his own wand, and let it dangle loosely at his side as he followed at a distance of about five feet. To be out of striking distance in case something attacked, Draco assumed uncharitably. As though the creatures in this forest would distinguish between which of them was a Ministry-approved chew-toy.

All of Draco's senses were on high alert. He'd hated going in the forest as a student, and as an adult with a much better idea of the horrors of the world, he liked it even less. His eyes darted to every twitch of a leaf, every glint of sunlight off a patch of dewy grass. His ears categorized every snapping twig or rustle of branches as either his and Weasley's doing or a portent of death, and held the wind under the highest suspicion.

A foreign sound came to his ears. He spun on his heel, a hex ready on his tongue, only to discover that Weasley was humming. An old Celestina Warbeck ballad, as a matter of fact. Weasley gave him an odd look. Draco's shoulders tensed and he turned back around, filled with indignation. 'I will win back my life on my own terms,' he thought forcefully, biting his tongue as he recited what he thought of as his 'Parole Mantra'. 'I will force the Ministry to admit that they cannot defeat the Malfoys. I will be happy and they will despise me for it, and that will make me even happier.'

The song Weasley was humming was 'You Stole My Cauldron But You Can't Have My Heart'.

"I think a break for lunch is in order," Draco declared loudly. He looked around. They weren't exactly in a clearing, but then, there hadn't been any clearings. There hadn't been any paths either. Just unbridled, stubborn flora and skittering, unseen fauna. Where they stood was as good a spot as any for a short rest.

"That's not for you to decide," Weasley sniffed. He peered at their immediate surroundings. "But this will do."

Rather than responding, Draco transfigured a chair from twigs and leaves (inanimate Transfigurations were grouped into one category and listed as number fifty on Draco's spell lexicon, restricted, of course, to objects not suited to bludgeoning Weasley into silence). He shrugged his knapsack off his shoulder and sat down to tug out his food parcel, hoping for something exceptionally filling.

Weasley transfigured his own chair and settled down with some kind of sandwich from his battered knapsack. Draco set his dish to hovering at table height in front of him and started to eat the pot-au-feu provided by his house elves, cooked rare to his preference. The quality of the food went unappreciated, as his attention was still on the forest around them in case of an attack.

Weasley's wide eyes were what gave Draco his first hint that they were no longer alone. He gripped his wand tightly, but before he could stand, something with hot breath nudged at his shoulder. He shouted and stumbled away from his chair and to his feet, wand trained on what turned out to be a thestral enthusiastically finishing his lunch.

The reptilian horses were as disconcerting as they had been the first time Draco ever saw one. He kept well back as several more emerged from out of the trees and nosed at Draco's food.

"Right," he said after long, tense seconds of watching the thestrals and deciding that they were more interested in his lunch than in either of them. He turned to Weasley, who was still seated, and without preamble, shouted, "Do you want us both to die here?"

Weasley's eyes widened again, then narrowed. "You might wish to reconsider your tone, Parolee Malfoy," he said, standing up and brushing off his robes. The bloody quill and parchment came out again, but Draco pushed onward.

"My tone is utterly irrelevant if you don't bother to alert me to potential threats!" Draco responded, one hand flying up to indicate the thestrals. Two were licking his plate clean and another gnawed on his fork thoughtfully, shining white eyes fixed on their argument.

"I am the Witness to your Requaero Probum, not your assistant," Weasley declared. "I am not here to do the heavy lifting whilst you stroll at ease along the path I forge, Parolee Malfoy, and any assistance I do offer will be seen as a mark against your ability to complete your task without a genuinely honorable wizard's assistance!"

Draco wanted nothing more than to hit him right in the face, an impropriety he'd picked up from Weasley's younger brother and Potter himself, who they were ostensibly on their way to rescue. The irony of it would be lost on Weasley if Draco really did break his nose, and it was that knowledge that allowed Draco to keep his fists to himself.

"I am not asking you to take the lead or complete the quest," Draco said instead, speaking through clenched teeth. "I am asking you to take an interest in your own continued well-being by perhaps speaking up when you see a threat!"

"The Ministry classification of thestrals is currently in committee," Weasley informed him with a superior, dismissive glance. "The original XXXX rating is being contested, and therefore their threat level is unconfirmed."

Draco mouthed wordlessly at him, doing his best not to actively splutter in the face of Weasley's unapologetic insanity. Instead, he spun on his heel and marched away into the trees, his chair snapping back into a pile of twigs as he passed and startling one of the younger thestrals, who attempted to take a bite out of his leg in retaliation.

"Bloody buggering fuck!" Draco exclaimed, leaping away and clutching at his thigh, which was now bleeding. "Stupid fucking evil dragon-horse bas-"

"Equanimity is easily broken by the slightest of inconveniences from a creature not expressly classified as a dangerous beast," Weasley declared, apparently having decided that verbal confirmation of what he was writing was just the thing Draco needed. "Possesses a decidedly unvirtuous foul mouth, in addition to a rather quick temper..."

"You have no idea," Draco muttered to himself as he limped away, Weasley at his heels. The thestrals followed until Draco realized they were after the blood still dripping sluggishly from his thigh. By the time they backed him into a tree and started nosing and nipping at his leg, he'd made up his mind. Thestrals deserved the XXXX rating. Not that the Ministry would take his opinion into account.

"I don't believe episkey is in my lexicon," Draco said in a parody of calm, using his wand to nudge one of the larger thestrals back as it licked the blood from where it'd trickled down to his knee. More appeared, drawn by his wound. "I'm requesting a special dispensation, Witness Weasley."

Weasley watched him from the other side of the thestrals. Draco heard a ripping sound and looked down with some alarm, only to find that one of the thestrals had taken off with a sizable portion of his robes from the knee down. "I'm requesting that right now, Witness Weasley," he said through gritted teeth.

"Usually I would be required to submit your petition for approval, Parolee Malfoy," Weasley told him, speaking with what Draco felt was deliberate and malicious torpidity. "But taking into account the respectful nature of your request, I will use my authorization as Witness to allow it, in this singular instance."

This Weasley was the worst Weasley, Draco decided as he cast first episkey, then lavare to remove the blood and thestral spit from his leg and robes. He longed for Ron's casual hatred, or Weaslette's Bat Bogey Hex.

Weasley looked as though he expected Draco to express some kind of gratitude. Draco would have preferred to tie him to a tree and leave him for the thestrals. Instead, he set his wand in his palm again, intoning, "Point me."

He adjusted their course and continued to push through the underbrush as though Weasley wasn't with him at all. Sure enough, the scritching of a quill accompanied Weasley's trampling footsteps as they carried onward.

They managed to avoid any creatures more dangerous than the average saber-tooth fox until the sky began to darken, though there was a bit of a mix up with some grindylow lobbing poisonous toadstools as they attempted to cross a rather treacherous river.

Draco had hoped they would make it to Potter's Tower before dark. The worst of what the Forbidden Forest had to offer tended to be nocturnal, and Draco doubted he'd sleep well with any number of bloodthirsty creatures sniffing around his tent.

Unfortunately, they had another ten kilometers to walk by his own estimate, else he would have pushed onward. Instead, he kept walking until he found a small area sheltered on one side by an boulder taller than Draco. They could set up camp there for the night.

He said as much to Weasley, who sniffed and walked in a short circle, kicking at the uneven ground and peering suspiciously at a nearby bush. "I think we should keep walking," he said. "This spot is less than ideal."

"We're in the Forbidden Forest and the sun is setting," Draco pointed out, already opening his knapsack to reach for supplies. "We need to set up a warded perimeter, light a fire, and erect our tents before anything finds us."

Weasley walked a few feet into the forest on his own as Draco stood next to the boulder, still holding his knapsack and watching him wander off with growing frustration. After a moment, he called back, "I think that if we just kept walking a bit further, we'd-"

It turned out that Weasley did have some notion of self-preservation. Draco hadn't really believed it up to this point, but apparently even the Assistant to the Undersecretary of Bollocks knew to shut up when he heard rustling and clicking from just beyond their line of vision.

"Come back here," Draco said, his voice low and deliberate. Weasley complied without complaint, putting his back to the solid stone behind them and raising his wand. They stood together in the gathering darkness, waiting.

The clicking and rustling grew louder, and Draco realized it was coming from more than one direction just moments before the first spider struck by leaping down at them from the treetops. Its body alone was bigger than the two of them combined, and each of its eight legs reached for them.

Weasley shouted and cast a shield spell around himself. The boulder was shaped in such a way that he could huddle at the base of it and have some shelter from attack. Draco's list of acceptable spells fled his mind, and he cast diffindo at the spider's underbelly. It split open just enough to spatter blood all over the two of them. The spider's legs scrambled against the dirt and the boulder as it pushed itself away, and a new one replaced it, snapping at them with its pincers.

"You're not really going to let me do this by myself, are you?" Draco shouted, his voice going high with panic as Weasley cast another shield and hunched further against the boulder. "What kind of Gryffindor are you?"

Three spiders surrounded their position, cornering them against the boulder. Their legs scrabbled against the stone as they tried to gain purchase. As Draco spoke, one of the spiders shifted just so, and its pincers caught him on his shoulder. He cried out and huddled down, clutching at his shoulder with his good arm and using the injured one to point his wand. "Defodio!"

The spider went flying and hit a tree, landing on its back and staggering to its feet before rejoining the fray.

"You have all the resources you require," Weasley shrilled, clasping his arms over his head. "I am under strict orders to provide no assistance, Paro-"

"I have five offensive spells!" Draco shrilled right back. "Five! Do you want to die here, Weasley? Ariania Exumai!"

The nearest spider flew back and landed on all eight feet, clicking wildly and advancing on Draco again without pause. He aimed his wand and shouted, "Locomotor Mortis! Stupefy! There, that's all of them! I do hope you consider our lives to be risk right now, or that Leg-Locker Curse is really going to do me in at my next hearing!"

Neither spell had an appreciable effect on the spiders. Draco counted eight at this point. He aimed his wand at one of the long, hairy legs waving near his head and cast, "Diffindo!"

The leg was severed neatly, and Draco felt a surge of triumph. The spider's cry of pain sounded almost human, and Draco ignored it in favor of taking aim once more.

"Diffindo! Diffindo!" The spiders gathered in a tight knot around them, presumably to stop Draco from casting that spell again. He forced himself to ignore the copper stench of blood and the damp, cloying scent of the spiders, and put all of his power behind his next curse. "Ariania Exumai!"

All eight spiders were sent flying in a clump of tangled legs and pincers. Draco and Weasley had about five seconds to breathe, and Draco used those seconds to take aim before the spiders could detangle themselves and regroup. "Defodio!"

The clicking was joined by what Draco would usually qualify as screaming, if it wasn't coming from spiders. It was a horrible sound. He'd killed at least one of them, from the look of it. An uninjured spider hoisted the pieces of the dead one above its head with two legs and fled.

That left another six to deal with, and Draco doubted they'd give him a chance to catch them off guard again.

"Weasley!" Draco said, glancing quickly to his left in time to see him strengthening his shield spell. "You really are just going to sit there, aren't you? If you aren't going to help, I'm going to use real curses!"

"I have orders!" Weasley bawled as he hid his face in his knees. "And I will make note that you violated your parole if you do! You'll be in Azkaban the second we leave this forest!"

"Diffindo! I hate you! You are the most useless idiot I have ever met! How are you even still alive?" Draco shouted at him. Another spider got close enough to take a swipe at Draco's ribs, and he cowered back against the boulder. "Er, scourigify!"

The cleaning spell certainly caught the spider off guard, though it didn't do much to stop it attacking.

"Accio rocks!" Draco shouted. They barrelled satisfyingly into the spider's side, knocking it into the others. "Depilato!"

He had expected a hair-severing charm to be about as effective as the scourigify, but the spider fell back, twitching and spasming alone in the dirt. Its pincers clicked wildly. Draco stared at it, wondering if he'd cast the wrong spell by accident.

"Depilato!" He cast again, on a different spider. Sure enough, hundreds of small hairs severed themselves from the spider's body, and it gave all appearance of panicking. This one attacked Draco more ferociously, catching his wand arm and nearly severing a vein.

Draco yelped, pulling his arm in against his chest and switching his wand to his other hand. "Depilato totalus!"

This time, all the tiny hairs detached and the spider threw itself into convulsions, clicking and skittering away into the forest, even banging into a tree in a burst of uncoordinated panic.

The other spiders chittered and clicked amongst themselves, hovering several feet away. It looked to Draco like they were making a decision about what to do with him, and he wanted to be involved. He pushed himself to his feet, one arm still cradled against his chest.

"Depilato totalus!" he shouted again, aiming his wand at the group of them. They flinched back out of range. Draco brandished his wand threateningly, and that seemed to do the trick. The last of the spiders fled into the trees, leaving Draco bloodied and panting, and Weasley cowering.

Draco gasped once and fell back against the boulder, sliding to the ground and only hyperventilating a little. After a long period of silence where he and Weasley caught their breath and came to terms with not being dead, Draco finally spoke. "We need to set up a warded perimeter, light a fire, and erect our tents before anything else finds us."

"Yes," Weasley said faintly. He shifted, finally lowering his wand, and looked sidelong at Draco. "This spot works." He hesitated, but eventually added, "I like this boulder. This is a nice boulder."

* * *

Draco did his best to heal his wounds, but even if he was allowed the full use of his magic, he didn't know how to heal cuts as deep as the ones he'd sustained. Instead, he bandaged them awkwardly as Weasley cast warding spells to seal them away from the creatures that would inevitably be attracted by all the blood spilled in their little patch of forest. Those weren't included in Draco's lexicon, and Weasley hadn't argued his request for quite possibly the first time on this miserable hike.

Warding finished, Weasley came over to where Draco still sat, propped up against the boulder. He peered at Draco, then nodded to himself and turned back around, tugging his knapsack open.

"Satisfied I'm not about to keel over and die?" Draco called to him, weary and irritable. He wanted to sit right where he was for the rest of the night, but watching Weasley set up a tent and disappear inside reminded him that there were better options available.

He pushed himself to his feet, eyed the perimeter Weasley had created for them, and hobbled over to the center.

"Incendio," he said, aiming at a single stick that lay there. Fire started, he wandered around the small area, kicking other sticks into a pile on top of the first one. He swayed as he hovered over it, waiting for the flames to catch further and instead watching them begin to die. He sighed. "Incendio," he cast again, then abandoned the whole mess. If it burned, it burned.

Struggling one-handed with his knapsack, he managed to retrieve his trunk and find the tent that was bundled in with his clothing and the rest. He levitated it to an empty patch of dirt and roots. "Erecto," he muttered, watching it spring into shape with a dull, emotionless gaze.

Once that was finished, he levitated his trunk and knapsack inside with him, dropped them haphazardly to the floor, and climbed into bed. He barely had time to pull the covers over himself before he passed out.

* * *

Draco woke the next morning feeling awful. He stumbled out of bed and immediately stubbed his toe on the trunk he'd left sitting in the middle of the room.

"Shit," he muttered, eyes squinted against the cold morning light streaming in from the door flap. He knelt down and fumbled blindly through his trunk for his potion pouch.

"Should label these better," he mumbled to himself as he scratched at his jaw and stared at two vials of unidentifiable red liquid. Usually he could tell by colour and scent, but his head was scrambled this morning.

He took both into the small bathroom and left them on the counter as he started the shower and peeled off his makeshift bandages, wincing as he ripped the newly forming scabs.

After scrubbing every bit of dirt and blood and spider gore off of his skin and out of his hair, Draco felt a little better. He stood in front of the counter again, staring at the vials, then shrugged to himself and downed both. One was going to be a Blood Replenishing potion and the other was Pepper-Up. It didn't really matter.

On his way back through the bedroom, dressed, re-bandaged, and feeling much more lucid, he grimaced at the bedsheets, which were stained and bloody in patches. He waved his wand to strip them from the mattress and levitated them behind him as he left his tent. Weasley's was still standing next to his own, and Draco watched the entrance as he immolated his sheets.

When no Ministry-appointed redheads emerged by the time Draco finished his task, he went back inside and sat down to breakfast. About halfway through his eggs benedict, Draco heard shuffling and the crackle of magic from outside. He took one last bite, wiped his mouth with his napkin, then stood to go see what Weasley was up to.

"It is eight o'clock, Parolee Malfoy," Weasley said when he spotted Draco. He'd already taken his tent down.

"So?" Draco asked, watching as he stuffed it back into his knapsack.

"My hours are from eight am to five thirty pm," Weasley explained. "You're back on the clock."

"We're doing this quest within the Ministry's hours of operation?" Draco asked, gaping. "You must be..."

Weasley's impatient expression told Draco that he was most certainly not joking. He threw up his hands.

"Of course," he said, turning around and storming back into his tent. "Of course we are, what was I thinking? How absolutely daft of me." He vanished his breakfast with a snap of his wand, then summoned everything back into his trunk. Back outside, he tore down the tent with two flicks of his wand and had everything packed up neatly in his knapsack in under a minute.

Weasley had already dropped the wards, so he cast point me and stormed off in the right direction. The parchment and quill were out again, he noted with a satisfying eye roll.

It was only another couple hours to Potter's tower, and Draco spent it listening to Weasley stroll along, humming as though he were on a short jaunt in the countryside.

The sight of a spire rising up through the trees in the distance was profound. Draco was almost pleased, until he remembered that Potter was up there. Soon he'd have two Gryffindors to plague him.

When they reached Potter's Tower, Draco was surprised to step out of the trees and onto a bed of moss. The tower was situated in the center of a clearing, and as Draco looked more closely at the ground, he began to realize why the forest might have allowed it.

"Oh good, you'll fit right in," Weasley said, though there was a note of alarm under the scathing words. More snakes than Draco had ever seen in one place slithered and wriggled in a heaving mass at the foot of the giant stones that comprised the base of the tower.

Keeping to the treeline, Draco circled the clearing, wide eyed. Not only did the snakes surround the tower entirely, but there was no entrance. Just one window, all the way at the top.

He circled the tower one last time, frowning, then stopped below the window. "Hello?" he called, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Hello! Anybody up there?"

The tower continued to loom silently. Draco scowled and took a step back as one of the snakes split off from the group and took an opportunity to hiss and snap at his shoe.

Draco waited another couple minutes with nothing to show for it, then began to grow impatient. He found a sizeable rock on the forest floor, hefted it with a small frown, and then chucked it at the tower, aiming for the open window. "Oi! Potter!" He missed his mark and went hunting around for another rock, chucking it as well. He was closer to the window that time. "Hey! Potter, wake up, you stupid wanker!"

Draco could see Weasley lurking at the edge of the treeline, shaking his head. He suspected the quill and parchment were about to make an appearance, but Weasley just didn't understand how he and Potter worked.

"Potty! Hey, Scarhead! Grotty Potty! I'm ringing your bloody doorbell, here! Hello!"

"I thought I was having a nightmare," said a voice. Draco craned his neck to see Potter, his arms resting on the windowsill as he leaned out to get a better look. "But no. Draco Malfoy is really standing under my window, calling me childish nicknames and throwing rocks."

"You answered," Draco pointed out, offering Potter a winsome smile as dropped his newest rock without complaint. "And not a single person exploded. I call that a victory for England."

Potter's eyebrows pulled together, and he disappeared from view.

Draco waited five minutes. When Potter didn't return, he took a deep breath and began to shout: "He's the hero of the hour, he's the Saviour of the world! With eyes of fearsome jade, bearing Gryffindor's mighty sword! Oh, the evil and the Dark flee before his noble wand, for the Chosen One will smite the-"

Potter reappeared at the window. "What in the bloody hell is that you're singing?" he yelled over the end of the last bit of verse.

"Don't you like it?" Draco asked, blinking innocently up at him. "I heard it in a pub a few weeks ago."

"I hate it," Potter said, back to leaning on the windowsill.

"There's more," Draco told him, folding his hands neatly behind his back. "You haven't even heard the chorus yet."

"Oh Merlin," Potter said, the horror clear in his tone. "Go away, Malfoy."

"No," Draco said simply. "I walked all this way to see you, Potter, and you aren't even going to offer me tea and a biscuit?"

"Right," Potter said, giving him a strange look. "That's true. What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to save you, fair damsel," he said, grinning widely. Potter showed him two fingers and disappeared back into his tower again. Draco took a deep breath.

"Ohhhh," he sang, drawing it out for a bit longer than necessary. "Potter, Potter, raise your lager, Potter saved the world from slaughter, thought for sure I was a goner, till the day that I met Potter-"

"IF YOU PROMISE TO STOP-" Potter bellowed, once again interrupting Draco right in the middle. He did stop, tilting his head expectantly. Potter cleared his throat, looking rather disgruntled. "And not start singing again," he continued, leaning further out the window. "Then you can come up."

"I promise," Draco said obediently, and watched Potter vanish once more. This time, he waited maybe a minute before a broomstick came sailing out the window in a freefall.

He summoned it to himself and glanced at Weasley, who had started toward him, clearly intent on coming along for the ride. "Nope," he muttered, though he knew Weasley couldn't hear him. It hardly mattered.

He kicked off from the ground and twisted in a tight circle to avoid the forest, ignoring Weasley's sudden shout. He grinned, Potter's Firebolt 1500 banking neatly as he swooped over the writhing pile of snakes and circled the tower on ascent.

He reached the solitary window after a few loops and rolls that might have appeared gratuitous to uneducated eyes such as Weasley's. Potter leaned against the wall next to the window, listening to Weasley's shouted demands for Draco to return to the ground with an expression that neatly mirrored Draco's own amusement.

"Potter," Draco said, dropping the pretense of mockery entirely as he adjusted his grip on the broom. Now that he was within striking distance, he was reminded forcibly of the rumors of Potter's uncontrollable magic.

"Malfoy," Potter said, making no move to invite him inside. "I hear you brought a friend."

"I brought a Weasley," Draco corrected, glancing over his shoulder. Weasley held the quill in hand and was sitting under a tree, the rage in each slash of ink on parchment clear even from a distance.

Potter frowned and leaned out the window again to look. "You brought Percy," he said, looking back at Draco with open bafflement.

"Oh, is that his name?" Draco asked, tilting the broom up slightly so he could rest his chin on his arm. "He said to call him 'Witness Weasley.' I didn't ask questions."

"Witness... Weasley," Potter echoed. His eyebrows pulled together. "I'm lost."

"His actual title is something like 'Assistant to the Undersecretary of Something or Other," Draco said with badly hidden disdain.

"Of the Ministry of Silly Walks," Potter finished absently, still watching Weasley. Draco stared at him.

"I don't think so," he said. Potter flashed a grin at Draco, then nodded out the window again.

"No, really, watch," he said, and Draco tilted the broom around to see.

Potter looked straight down at the snake pit and hissed something unintelligible. Draco gaped at him, then at the snakes. As one, they rose up and became worryingly dragon-shaped. Weasley shouted in alarm, scrambled to his feet, and galloped back into the forest, quill and parchment forgotten.

"There, see?" he asked. When Draco continued to gape, he shrugged. "I just told them to scare him. He'll come back, I promise. Now, what are you doing here?"

"I'll explain if you let me come in," Draco offered, gathering his wits quickly. "I won't even ask for tea again, I promise."

Potter sighed. "I have tea," he said, turning away from the window. He walked to an open hearth in the middle of the circular room and waved his wand at the kettle hovering over it. "Just come in, Malfoy. And give me back my broom. I'll even share my biscuits."

Draco flew through the window and landed, looking around and eventually just propping the broom up by the window.

"I swear Weasley hasn't let me finish a proper meal since we started this bloody quest," he said conversationally, taking a couple steps away from the window. Potter's Tower consisted of a large, circular stone room with the window at twelve o'clock, the bed at six, and a small table and a couple chairs scattered between five and three. Nine o'clock was what must function as a kitchen, backed up to a set of circular stairs that led upward.

"You're on a quest," Potter repeated, ambling over to the cabinets and work surface that formed the suggestion of a kitchen and pulling together a mismatched tea service. He floated it over to the table and let it drop with a clatter. "What's that got to do with me?"

"I should think that much is obvious," Draco said, approaching from the other side. They stood there with the table in between and stared at each other.

Potter broke the silence first. "I'm not going anywhere, if that's what this is about," he said, crossing his arms.

"I know, I know," Draco said, taking another step toward the table and snagging a biscuit. "Dark wizard, evil curse, must protect the wizarding public," he said, and took a bite. "It's all astonishingly noble, if you like that sort of thing."

Potter watched him eat his biscuit with an odd expression. Draco swallowed the last bite and sighed.

"And of course, you do," he allowed. "But I really am here to help, Potter. The Ministry sent me to see if we can't do something about your little, er... prematurity issue."

"My-" Potter cleared his throat, blinked a couple times, then cleared it again, flushing faintly. "My- what? Excuse me?"

"You know, with your magic," Draco said, waving one finger in the air and making an illustrative sound that went something like: 'vrrrrrr-spoosh!'

Potter's expression shifted to incredulity. "What is the Ministry telling people about what happened?"

Draco smiled a private little smile and carried on. "Just that your magic is wild and untameable and that you've shut yourself away in a tower to keep your devoted fans safe," he explained, watching with fascination as Potter's expression contorted. "You seem to have some control over it, though," he pointed out, going serious as he realized the truth of his words. "How bad is it, really? If we're to find a counter curse, I'll need to know exactly what's going on."

Potter sighed and dropped down into a chair, scrubbing his hand through his hair. "You won't find a counter," he said, picking up a teacup and twisting it in his hands.

"You don't know that," Draco disagreed, taking Potter's unspoken cue and sitting down across from him. He plucked the teacup neatly from his hands and began pouring. "I hate to sound like I'm bragging, but the library at the Manor is full of all sorts of rare Dark Arts texts. It's entirely possible that I could find the answer where none of your other champions had the resources to look."

Potter lifted his head, glaring. "The Ministry sees it that way, do they?"

Draco met Potter's eyes directly. "No, the Ministry thinks you'll do to me what you did to the rest, and then they'll have their excuse to toss me in Azkaban."

"So, what?" Potter asked, resting his chin on his arms, still frowning. "They're forcing you to be here? I thought your family were pardoned. I testified at your bloody trials myself."

"For which we are eternally grateful," Draco allowed, pushing Potter's tea toward him when he didn't seem to have noticed. Potter looked at it with surprise. "Mother sends her love from France. But we weren't pardoned entirely, Potter. I'm still on probation. This whole..." He waved one hand expansively and took a sip of his tea. "This farce was my parole officer's idea, to redeem our name once and for all."

"Or to get you sent to Azkaban," Potter prompted, reaching for his tea.

"I think that's Weasley's plan, at least," Draco said darkly. "Or whoever sent Weasley here. He's exactly like a... what's that thing that muggles have? Automatons? Bit like a golem?"

"What?" Potter asked, straightening in his seat as he thought. "You mean a robot?" He started to grin. "Yeah, Percy's a Ministry-bot for sure."

"I know you like Weasleys, Potter," Draco said, leaning in slightly. "But at risk of offending you further, I'm going to tell you right now that I despise him. He hums when he walks."

"He doesn't like me much either," Potter said, leaning back in his seat now, taking a long sip of his tea and looking amused. "And I did just set my snakes on him. No offense taken."

"Well, good," Draco replied. "Now, about that curse-"

"Malfoy, I'm not going anywhere," Potter said, all amusement vanishing. "Leave it."

"I won't," Draco said, setting his tea down more sharply than he'd intended. A few scalding drops spilled onto his fingers and he ignored them, eyes fixed on Potter. "You send me away from here without some kind of accomplishment, and Weasley will see me sent to Azkaban within the week for violating my parole. He's been taking notes on every little thing I do since we started this bloody quest."

Something that might have been guilt flickered across Potter's face, but the next words out of his mouth belied Draco's hope. "Why is that my problem?"

"Because I will haunt you for the rest of your natural life," Draco said, lowering his voice and narrowing his eyes.

Potter did not pretend to be impressed. "Malfoy, they're not going to kill you," he said, rolling his eyes.

"They may as well, and you know it," Draco snapped. "I'll use my weekly owl to send you updates, how's that? 'Hello again, Potter. This week Azkaban took my last memory of flying. I'm going to tell you all about my favorite Latin tutor in this letter, before I forget her too. She used to take me on walks in the garden when we-'"

"Merlin, Malfoy, that's not funny. Stop it," Potter said, reaching a hand out toward Draco as if in defense.

"I didn't say it was, and don't think I won't do it," Draco threatened. Potter looked quietly horrified, and Draco's expression softened. "Honestly, Potter, I just want to help. Do you know anything about the curse at all?"

Potter huffed and stared down into his teacup, looking mutinous and vaguely distressed. "You're really going to make me do this, aren't you?"

"If 'this' includes letting me try to fix you," Draco ventured cautiously, "Then... yes."

"There's nothing to fix," Potter muttered. Draco blinked, then pasted a polite smile on his face.

"Run that past me again?" he asked. Potter shifted in his seat, glancing up at Draco from under his fringe.

"I said there's no curse," Potter repeated. Draco could see a flush rising on his neck.

"I see," Draco said, carefully arranging his teacup at a precise angle to the edge of the table. "So the story about the Dark wizard-"

"He didn't curse my magic to become uncontrollable," Potter said, watching Draco's hands as he clenched them into fists on the table. "But I will kick you out if you try to hit me, Malfoy," he added quickly, his face reflecting a combination of anxiety and embarrassment.

It was just as it had always been, Draco realized, his blood boiling.

If Draco wanted to isolate himself in the Manor and spend his days in genteel solitude away from those that despised him, it was seen as suspicious and antisocial. But when Potter shut himself up in a bloody fucking tower in the middle of the most dangerous nature preserve on the planet for no good reason, he was lauded as a hero. Again.

"Right," Draco said, and took a deep breath. Giving Potter another broken nose would definitely land him in Azkaban. "Then what exactly are you doing out here?"

"There's no need to shout," Potter said, his shoulders shifting defensively. "I really can't go back. It would be putting people in danger, that part's true."

"I'm all ears," Draco bit out.

"He didn't curse me," Potter said, swallowing hard. "I... killed him."

Draco's eyebrows went up. "You killed him?"

"Yes." Potter clutched at his teacup tightly enough to break it. "I wasn't supposed to. He was going to escape and I cast- one of the curses they told us about in training and... and I didn't realize it would..." He looked up and seemed to realize who he was talking to, all the blood draining out of his cheeks at once. "Fuck, Malfoy, what are you even doing here?"

What a good question. Draco bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep his expression neutral.

"One would think that you would have learned better from the first 'accident'," he said, his tone blank. "Unless-"

Potter followed his line of thought impeccably, his eyes gone overlarge behind his glasses. "Don't say that," he begged, leaning forward slightly. "Please don't say that."

If he couldn't say that, he'd say nothing, Draco thought, turning his head and looking around the spartan tower Potter had banished himself to.

Potter dropped his head into his hands, elbows on the table, and spoke so quietly that Draco had to sit very still to hear him. "But this is how it starts, isn't it? It never bothered me during the war at all. I never killed anybody, but I hurt people and I never even felt bad about it."

"This is how what starts?" Draco ventured, his eyes snapping to the top of Potter's head, uncertain that he wanted to hear the answer.

"I always knew I was in the right," Potter continued, his voice heavy with something Draco quailed to define. "I cast Unforgivables and excused it because they were just Death Eaters and they deserved it and I thought I was better but..." He rubbed his eyes with his palms and pushed his fingers into his hair, his glasses knocked entirely askew. "He thought he was better, too, didn't he?"

The lines of Potter's shoulders were rounded with defeat, and Draco stared as he spoke. A part of him wanted to stand up and flee the tower, figure out his parole on his own. This was a charge more daunting than he'd been prepared for. Let Potter wallow in his conviction that Draco had come to rescue a damsel and found a monster. A simple counter curse wouldn't fix this.

But Draco couldn't just leave.

He took a deep breath, unprepared to plunge into the deep end of Potter's neuroses and taking a running jump anyway. "You think you're going to become another Dark Lord," he summarized. "Because you had to do nasty things to nasty people during the war, and because you don't know how to read a bloody spell description before you cast. Is that what you're saying?"

Potter lifted his head, meeting Draco's eyes with tenuous focus. "I killed someone," he said, shaking his head. "And I didn't care about doing nasty things to those people, Malfoy, I was glad to-"

"If you're going to be an Auror, you occasionally may have to kill people," Draco pointed out, pushing the tea tray aside and leaning in. "That's what you signed up for. And if we all have to mourn hurting the people who hurt us, no one's ever going to get over the bloody war. You would never have won it in the first place."

"Malfoy, I almost killed you!" Potter said, dropping his hands to the table and leaning away from him. "If Snape hadn't been there-"

"Yes, that's true," Draco sneered. "I remember it clearly. And then you saved my life several times after that. I feel that gives me the right to tell you to __get the fuck over it__."

Potter stared at him. Took off his glasses and cleaned them on the sleeve of his robes. "Get..." he echoed faintly, sliding them back onto his nose.

"Get over it," Draco confirmed, nodding once. "I have, for the most part. I've accepted that you're an idiot that needs someone to hold his hand through anything more complicated than basic arithmetic, and obviously Granger was busy when you found that spell..."

Potter's eyes were overbright. He looked like he might cry, a little. There was a small smile in there too, though, so Draco hoped he would manage to restrain himself. "Fuck off," he said, dropping his head into his arms on the table and leaving it there.

Draco picked up his teacup again and took a sip, aware that his hands were shaking slightly.

"D'you really forgive me?" Potter asked, his voice muffled. Draco shook his head and set his teacup down, disconcerted by how still Potter held himself as he waited for an answer.

"Yes, of course," he said, feeling a smile curve his mouth as Potter visibly relaxed. "But you have to do one thing for me, in return."

Potter lifted his head and looked at Draco, his eyes wide and green. "Okay," he said, and waited. Draco extended his hand across the table, palm up.

"Come down out of this tower with me," he said. Potter's expression flickered, his eyes darting away over Draco's shoulder to the sky outside the window. His gaze came back to Draco, and there was prurience there, and apprehension.

Potter looked down at his hand, then covered it with his own. "Okay," he said again, and when Draco beamed at him, he smiled back.


	2. Chapter 2

Potter only had the one broom.

"Alright, so you and I could fly and Weasley can walk," Draco said, back at the base of the tower with Potter in tow. Weasley was still nowhere to be found, despite Potter's earlier assurances. "We'll just let him know when we've gotten far enough away that he can't object."

"We can't leave Percy alone in the middle of the Forbidden Forest," Potter disagreed, shifting the broom on his shoulder as he crouched down in front of the snake pit. One of them slithered up his arm and he smiled at it. He began to hiss, then paused and refocused his eyes on Draco. "Molly and Arthur wouldn't be pleased at all."

"Are those like pets to you?" Draco asked, staring as Potter let the snake wind through his fingers and around his wrists.

"Not pets, exactly," Potter said, shrugging. "Friends, maybe. I could just take the broom and you could both go back the way you came."

"We walked," Draco said pointedly. "And I don't think the quest is fulfilled if you wander into the Ministry alone a full day before our glorious return."

"You really walked that whole way?" Potter asked, blinking behind his glasses. "Why didn't you just bring your own brooms?"

"I'm told it's part of the requirements of a Requaero," Draco said, sneering at the very notion. "According to the Ministry, efficiency isn't heroic and honorable enough."

The corner of Potter's mouth curled upward. "The Ministry doesn't think you're heroic and honorable? I am shocked, Malfoy. Shocked."

Draco raised a censorious eyebrow. "Keep talking like that and I'll put you right back up in that tower where I found you, Potter."

Potter grinned widely at that. "See? You're just bursting at the seams with honor and heroism."

"Shut up," Draco grumbled, ignoring Potter's amusement. He looked back into the trees with a frown. "Who takes the broom is sort of a moot point if we never find Weasley, you know."

Potter's smile dropped and his gaze followed Draco's, into the trees. "I honestly didn't think he'd run off," he said, chewing on his lip as he squinted. The bright sun in the clearing contrasted with the total shade under the leafy canopy, and made it difficult to see more than a few feet into the forest.

"Potter, you set a dragon made of snakes on him," Draco pointed out, shielding his eyes with his hand and trying to remember which direction Weasley went. "I don't think I'd have come back yet either."

"Yes, but he's Percy," Potter said, turning around and walking over to the spot where Weasley left his parchment and quill. "He wouldn't abandon his assignment, he's way too..."

"Sycophantic?" Draco offered, watching Potter pick up the parchment. He shrugged and started to skim Weasley's writing.

"Something like that," he said. Whatever he was reading caught his attention and he began to read more slowly. His lip curled and he dropped it back to the mossy ground, where it burst into flames. Draco bit back a smile and followed him when he marched past and into the forest.

"Where are we going, specifically?" Draco asked. Potter's stride looked purposeful. Draco imagined that after spending a year out here, he might know the area.

"Er, just to the river," Potter said, glancing back at him. "It's the safest route to get anywhere."

"And you think Weasley suddenly figured that out and beelined over there?" Draco asked. Potter rolled his eyes.

"No, I don't think he thought at all," Harry said. "Which is why we're going to the river."

Draco opened his mouth to ask for clarification, but Potter started hissing at the snake on his arm. Draco fell silent and listened, unwillingly fascinated. The short bursts of parseltongue he'd heard so far didn't compare to the lengthy slur of esses that Draco was suddenly witness to. It sounded like... Draco had no idea, to be honest. The tone was impossible to interpret. Potter could be chatting about the weather, or telling the snake to murder Draco, or describing his morning wank, and Draco would never know.

When the snake dropped to the forest floor and slithered away, Draco cleared his throat.

"Er," he said, then cleared his throat again. "What did you tell it?"

"I told him to send the others out to search for Percy," Potter said, ducking under a low hanging branch that Draco would probably have chosen to walk around. He turned around and lifted it for Draco, who nodded and ducked under after him. Better to trust Potter's route than find out why he'd chosen it.

"Ah, yes, he'll love that," Draco commented. Potter glanced at him and shrugged.

"He doesn't have to love it, he just has to get found," he pointed out, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Draco followed with his wand drawn. He decided as they walked that there was something very particular about Gryffindors that made them think it was alright to stroll casually through a terrifying forest of death with nary a thought to the dangers around them. Draco was betting on lead in the paint up in their common room.

"Can you explain again why we're going to the river?" Draco asked, glancing over his shoulder at a rustling from a nearby bush. He crossed his fingers for some kind of harmless rodent and took a deep, nervous breath.

"Advice from the naiad that lives there," Potter said, glancing over his shoulder at Draco and then beyond him. His eyes swept the area, then he turned back around and kept walking. Draco followed, frowning.

"Naiads don't like men," he objected, and watched Potter's shoulders lift in a shrug.

"She's never objected to me," he said. After a brief, thoughtful moment, he added, "Though maybe it's best if you wait somewhere else while I talk to her."

"I don't think so," Draco responded firmly. Potter glanced over his shoulder again, gave Draco a brief once over, then shrugged.

"Alright," he agreed, and kept walking.

* * *

The naiad didn't like Draco.

"She wants you to stand a bit further back," Potter said, his brow wrinkled in apology. Draco glanced behind himself and took a large step back.

"Better?"

Potter glanced at the naiad, then made another sort of scrunched, wincey face and said, "Further."

Draco rolled his eyes, turned around, and walked back to the tree line. "How about that?"

"That's better," Potter said, after consulting with the naiad. She spoke in a voice too low or too exclusive for Draco to hear, but Potter's responses were perfectly audible, and Draco listened in shamelessly.

"We're searching for a redheaded man," Potter told her. She replied and he shrugged. "I didn't ask them to. If you tell me where he is, I'll get them out of your hair."

Whatever she said in return made Potter sigh and scrub a hand through his hair. "That's not really an option." A pause. "Because I won't... look, it's not like that."

Draco's eyebrows went up.

"No, not as often, but... you like saltwater fish, I know you said that once."

Eavesdropping wasn't turning out to be as fruitful as Draco had imagined. Potter's words were gibberish to him without context.

"Look, Syké, he's family." Potter went faintly red at her reply, and responded, "No, I've told you about them. The redheads. ...No, he's not. ...I don't think that's such a good idea."

As Potter attempted to cajole the naiad into cooperation, Draco leaned his shoulder against a tree and watched until he grew bored. He should have kept his guard up; he should have turned around in the absence of anything interesting happening with Potter, and watched the forest. Instead, because he was a bloody idiot and lead paint poisoning was apparently contagious, he let his thoughts drift, admiring the way the sun filtered through the leaves in the small clearing they'd come to. The stream widened into a deceptively deep pool here, if the size of the naiad gave any indication, and the light sparkled off the water ethereally as Potter knelt at the bank to speak to 'Syké'.

Even Potter seemed different in such an idyllic scene. His hair was shinier, softer looking than Draco remembered from under the shelter of the forest canopy or in his tower, and he looked less like a weary hermit and more like a forest creature himself, exotic and unpredictable. He was calm but alert, intent on the naiad's words but poised to leap into action at a moment's notice.

With such a diverting view to distract him, the damp brush of a muzzle against Draco's neck nearly shocked him out of his wits.

"Potter!" he cried, leaping away and stumbling back toward the water. The naiad gave a screech of her own and vanished into the depths of the pool with a splash. Draco realized what he'd been fleeing from not a moment later and fumbled frantically for his wand until his back hit something solid.

"It's just a thestral, Malfoy." Potter's voice was bemused in his ear, and Draco reached back and grabbed his arm, moving so that Potter wasn't hiding entirely behind him.

"Just a thestral, is it?" Draco demanded, his voice high pitched. He knew what those bloody creatures would do given a drop of blood and an opportunity, even if Hagrid had apparently corrupted the minds of every Gryffindor to pass through Hogwarts since he became a teacher. "They're still classified with an XXXX rating until that infernal committee makes a decision, you know!"

A small smile flickered at the corners of Potter's mouth, but he sounded entirely serious when he said, "I'll protect you, if you like."

He picked at the damp material of his robes to get at his pocket, which was about the same time that Draco realized that Potter was soaked to the skin from the naiad's exit. His glasses were in his free hand, spotted with water, and his hair dripped into his eyes as he dug through his pocket for whatever he was intending to use to slay the beast.

When he produced an apple, Draco was sorely tempted to push him in the pool and let the naiad have her way with him. Instead, he was treated to the sight of Potter carefully approaching a wild thestral and having quite a bit more success than Draco would have expected in feeding it.

"You know," Potter said, watching the thestral as its skeletal nose prodded his pockets for more treats. "Thestrals are quite intelligent. I once asked one to take me to the Ministry, and it flew straight-"

"No," Draco said, taking a short step back. "Absolutely not."

"But it'd be so much faster-"

"No," he repeated firmly. Draco remembered the panic he'd felt yesterday, cornered by a whole herd of those eerie, reptilian creatures hell bent on eating him alive. He wasn't about to mount one like it was a sweet little baby Abraxan. He gave the thestral a wide berth as he stepped around it and Potter, back into the forest from the direction they'd come. "Did the naiad tell you anything useful?" he asked, raising his voice pointedly as Potter continued to pet the hateful dragon-horse.

He heard Potter heave a large sigh, and ignored it in favour of his own relief as Potter abandoned the thestral, muttered a drying spell, and caught up fast enough to catch his undamaged arm.

"She told me a bit before you interrupted her with all your shrieking," he said, tugging him away from the path they'd created already and in a different direction. Draco hesitated, but better to be lost with Potter than on a path in this forest without him.

"I wasn't shrieking, you wanker," Draco responded as he allowed himself to be dragged, nettled by the suggestion. "I was warning you of impending danger."

"Of a thestral," Potter corrected. He hadn't let go of Draco's arm yet, and the look he cast in Draco's direction suggested it was because he was worried that Draco might spot a bunny and go dashing off into the woods alone, shouting for help. Draco scowled.

"Four X's and you act like I'm picking on a toothless kneazle," he muttered. "I suppose if we ran into a werewolf, you'd pull a little ball out of your pocket and play fetch?"

"Werewolves prefer to play fetch with small branches," Potter replied without missing a beat. "Feels more like bones snapping between their teeth."

"I stand corrected," Draco grumbled, ignoring the return of Potter's smile. "Where are we going?"

"Skyé said Percy's headed toward Hogsmeade," Potter explained. "If he has any idea where he's going... which I doubt... and if he continues in the right direction... which again, I doubt he will, considering..." He hesitated again, looking worried. "Then he still won't make it to anywhere familiar or safe by nightfall."

Draco remembered last night with a grimace. "Fine. Let's go find the idiot before he comes across a nundu that doesn't like Celestina Warbeck."

"There are no nundus in the Forbidden Forest," Potter pointed out, just to ruin Draco's joke.

"Yes, and all the other dangerous beasts want her cauldron," Draco agreed, rolling his eyes. "Let's just get this over with before one of us dies horribly. Probably me."

"I won't let you die," Potter said, his sincerity entirely opposed the blasé, unconcerned state of mind Draco was attempting to cultivate. He was making it rather difficult for Draco to pretend at the kind of Gryffindor bravery that clearly got him and Weasley through this sort of adventure unscathed.

Draco sighed loudly. "That's appreciated, I assure you," he said, and stomped off in the direction Potter indicated. Potter rushed after him and ended up proving his point less than two minutes later by extricating Draco from a hidden patch of Devil's Snare.

* * *

It was nearing nightfall, and neither snake nor naiad nor Chosen One had managed to track down their redheaded quarry. Draco had made himself useful earlier by requiring that Potter set up a warded perimeter before he would share his lunch, and was currently on the lookout for a comparatively safe spot to set up camp for the night.

"Up this way," Potter said when Draco paused at a neat little clearing part of the way up an incline. "Those are mooncalf markings. The wolves will be sniffing around if we stay."

"It's not the full moon," Draco objected, though he followed as Potter set off up the hill again. "Mooncalves and werewolves won't be out right now."

"No, but normal wolves will, and the ones in this area will be looking for a mooncalf nest," Potter explained. "I'd rather they didn't get us confused with one."

"If you put it that way," Draco said, grimacing. Potter paused at the top of the incline, near a sharp drop. "Here?" Draco suggested instead. When Potter agreed, he dropped his bag on the ground and transfigured a chair from a few branches.

"Why can't you cast the wards?" Potter asked, having already taken several steps back to begin creating their perimeter. "You must know the spells."

"Those spells are not in my lexicon," Draco parroted in his best impression of Weasley. Merlin knew he'd heard enough of the git's voice over the past couple days to manage a good one. "Parolee Malfoy's revised lexicon in its entirety consists of one hundred and thirty three spells, only six of which are even remotely useful in offensive situations. Seven of the spells in Parolee Malfoy's revised lexicon are not useful in offensive situations, but are restricted because permission should be received in triplicate before a parolee can be allowed to heal himself or conjure anything that might, on the Janus Thickey Ward, be considered a weapon."

When Draco finished his recitation, he looked up from where he'd been idly summoning firewood to find Potter staring at him, wand clenched in his hand, wards forgotten. "Yes?" Draco asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"They sent you out here with six offensive spells?"

"I'm including the depilatory charm in that list," Draco added, wondering what the almost blank look on Potter's face meant.

At Draco's words, the blank expression faded into confusion and Potter's stance shifted into something less offensive. "Er, why?"

"It works on the giant spiders," Draco explained. "I didn't expect it to at first, but suffice to say it ended up better than any of my other options."

Potter nodded once and went back to the wards, his back still stiff. Draco was ready to be offended until Potter sat down next to him in front of the fire he'd started and said, "That's clever."

"What's clever?" Draco asked, having long since moved on to sorting through his bag to untangle his tent from a bit of cord attached to one of his robes. "The fire?"

"The depilatory charm," Potter corrected, holding his hands out to the fire for warmth. Draco rolled his eyes and picked up his wand to extract everything from his bag in the hope of making the detangling easier.

"Well, when scourgify didn't work to defeat the horde, it was the next obvious choice," he said sarcastically.

"No, I mean it," Potter said, turning his head and watching Draco pack things back into his bag. "I would never have thought to try that sort of spell. It was creative."

Draco paused with the offending robes in hand and lifted his gaze to Potter's to find that he looked entirely in earnest.

"Thanks," Draco said slowly, frowning. He finished putting his things away, leaving the tent and the food parcel out for later. "It was a bit, wasn't it?"

Potter grinned at him. "It was. So... is this a good time to ask if you're going to share your dinner, too? I didn't think we'd be out wandering this long, else I'd have brought my own."

* * *

After dinner, Draco set up the tent with a few flicks of his wand and considered their situation while Potter finished off the tiramisu. Manners dictated that Draco give Potter the bed, considering that Potter was technically a guest. But then, wasn't Draco also a guest of a sort, in the forest Potter had called home for the past year? So he should get the bed. Especially since he'd had to share his meal again. He was starting to feel that he hadn't eaten properly in far too long. It must be bad for him. Surely a good night's sleep was warranted?

But no. Making Heroic Harry Potter sleep on the rug at the foot of his bed would cause the wizarding population in general to frown on him upon his return. The honorable thing would be to let Potter have the bed despite Draco's various aches and injuries, he assumed. It seemed like something a Gryffindor would do, in any case, and didn't everyone just love them?

Then again, knowing Weasley, no one would hear about his noble sacrifice upon their return. Though they'd certainly hear about it if he didn't kowtow to Potter, Draco was certain.

Bloody Weasley had somehow managed to ruin his night even when he wasn't present.

"I suppose you can take the bed for tonight," Draco said grudgingly, after Potter set the empty plate down on the forest floor and leaned back in his transfigured chair. He narrowed his eyes and thought to add, "But if we're still out here looking for Weasley come tomorrow, we're switching."

Potter looked up from the flames, eyebrows lifted. "Malfoy, I'm not going to take your bed. Where are you going to sleep?"

Draco scowled. Where, indeed? "I'll conjure something up," he said instead. Potter sat back and gave him a long look.

"No offense," he said eventually, and Draco bristled, quite ready to be offended. "But are you allowed to transfigure something that large? From what I remember, you wouldn't be allowed to use that much power on one spell."

Damn Potter and his Auror training. Draco decided that he probably wouldn't buy that the rules had changed in the last year, and glared into the flames. "Fine, Potter, since you're such a bloody stickler for the rules, I suppose I'll be sleeping on the floor. Is that what you were going for?"

Potter sat up straight in his seat. "No! I just meant... I mean, you should have somewhere to sleep that won't aggravate your shoulder, and-"

Draco's eyes snapped up to Potter's face. "How do you know about my shoulder?"

"You've been favouring it all day," he explained, shrugging and gesturing vaguely toward the offending shoulder. "Your arm, too. I'm not very good at healing or I would have offered to fix it. What happened? Was it the spiders?"

Draco hesitated, but Potter watched him without a hint of mockery for long enough that he felt obliged to reply honestly. "It was. I believe I explained how that ended."

Potter's eyes narrowed. "Right. I assume that's what you meant about not being allowed to heal yourself. I'm going to punch Percy on the nose when we find him." Draco blinked and glanced away into the darkness of the forest, but when he looked back, Potter still looked almost... angry, on Draco's behalf. It felt strange, to see that look on Potter's face for Draco instead of because of him.

"I know this is where I'm supposed to tell you that it's no big deal and you shouldn't," Draco said slowly. "But... I'd really like to see you punch him."

Potter laughed, and Draco smiled to himself, his gaze going back to the fire as some of the tension he'd been carrying since sunset disappeared. Potter fell silent, and the two of them listened as the crackle and pop of the fire contrasted with the rustling of dead leaves and the occasional cry of whatever vicious, nocturnal beasts frequented this part of the wood.

"Honestly, Malfoy," Potter said, long minutes later. His voice was low and serious. "I'm impressed. You've done a proper job of all this. I feel very... rescued."

Potter's words only made the strangeness of the situation intensify, and Draco couldn't help but look at him again, if only to assure himself that it was really Harry Potter speaking.

'Make sure you mention that to the Wizengamot, would you?" he requested, a touch of bitterness tinging his words. "Weasley's going to do his best to make every damn thing I did on this quest sound as ignoble as possible. He'll probably claim I coerced you out of that tower. And blame me for the snakes, if he can manage it."

"I won't let him," Potter said, not meeting Draco's eyes. "When you first got here, you annoyed me, harassed me, and even tried to emotionally blackmail me. But that's not what made me follow you." Potter examined an old scar on his hand with far more intensity than the mark deserved as he continued speaking. "I came down from that tower because you forgave me. I thought that was perfectly noble of you."

The response Draco had been formulating stuck in his throat. He watched the flames as he gathered himself, his face deliberately blank against the sheer force of Potter's candor.

"Well..." he managed after a long, heavy silence. "Be that as it may, you'll still have to explain about the snakes."

Draco caught the edge of Potter's smile with a quick glance. "Absolutely," he said. Draco nodded, more to himself than anything else, and continued contemplating the fire. How was it that even when playing the role of damsel, Potter still managed to make Draco feel like he was back on that broom in the Room of Requirement, clinging to Potter's waist and urging him to fly faster, get them out, save them both? All three Malfoy trials had been the same. Potter stood in front of the Wizengamot and explained how Draco had saved his life, and then Narcissa after him, but it had been Potter saving them, no matter how he framed it.

He only realized how long they'd been sitting in silence when Potter broke it by clearing his throat and making a rather abrupt suggestion. "We can just share the bed, if you want. It's big enough."

Draco blinked and looked at him properly. "Share?"

"Yeah, if, er..." Potter scratched his nose, shrugging. "I mean, I don't really want to sleep on the floor either, and my transfiguration isn't all that good-" Draco frowned. Potter did just fine transfiguring a chair for himself earlier. He was sitting on it right now, even. Potter continued, his words punctuated by another shrug. "It's not like it's that big a deal, is it?"

Draco paused, still frowning. The bed was, in fact, large enough for two people, and sharing seemed to be the most efficient solution. And maybe Potter wasn't as good at larger transfigurations. Some people weren't. "I suppose it isn't," he said, tilting his head as Potter nodded along immediately. "Yes, alright, we'll share. As long as you don't snore." He paused, then added, "And if you kick me in your sleep, I'll be changing my mind about you and the floor."

"I'll keep that in mind," Potter said, grinning. He sat back in his seat, cheeks still flushed from leaning so close to the flames during their conversation, and said, "There's no more of that cake, is there?"

"It wasn't 'cake', Potter," Draco replied, rolling his eyes even as he reached for the food parcel.

* * *

Going to bed was both more and less awkward than Draco had imagined it would be. He went straight for the shower, grimacing at the memory of his blood and gore soaked sheets from the night before. When he returned in his pyjama bottoms, toweling his hair dry, he found Potter hovering in essentially the same spot Draco had left him twenty minutes ago.

"Did you want to-" Draco asked, gesturing toward the bathroom. Potter started as though Draco's voice had been unexpected, and nodded, beelining for the bathroom. Draco suspected he'd been staring at the fresh bandages on his shoulder and arm, and decided he didn't care enough to ask.

He spelled new sheets onto the bed and crawled in, exhausted and uninterested in having an argument over which side of the bed they should each sleep on. By the time Potter returned, Draco was already settled under the blankets on his stomach, dozing. He was briefly startled awake when the bed dipped under new weight. Potter settled on his side facing Draco, and only seemed to realize Draco's eyes were open and watching him when he'd finished settling in and happened to glance at him.

"Alright?" Potter asked, his gaze cautious and his voice nearly a whisper. Instead of responding, Draco let his eyes drift shut again. After a moment, Potter seemed to decide that was that. "Good night, Draco," he said in the same low tones, and presumably went to sleep himself. Draco wasn't bothered either way.

* * *

"-CO MALFOY!"

"-ME DRACO MALF-"

Draco lifted his head groggily, his eyes half squinted shut, and mumbled, "What, Potter?"

Potter, who had moved closer at some point in the night, lifted his hand vaguely and let it drop at Draco's waist, still mostly asleep. "M'na... nothin'."

Draco let his head fall back against his pillows, closing his eyes again until a few moments later, when he heard someone shout, very distinctly, "POINT ME, DRACO MALFOY!"

"Potter," Draco said, sitting up this time and letting the blankets (and Potter's arm, which hadn't moved) fall into his lap. "You heard that, right?"

Draco's sharp tone roused Potter this time, and he sat up himself, yawning and scrubbing a hand through his hair. "Heard-?"

"Someone calling my name," Draco said, positive now. He pushed the blankets away and got out of bed, digging a robe out of his knapsack and tossing it on haphazardly. Potter still looked rather disoriented, but he shifted to get up as well.

"D'you think it's-"

"Sounded like Weasley," Draco called back into the tent as he ducked outside. Their fire was nothing but coals now, a bare glow in the black pitch of the night. He cast a distracted incendio at the embers to give them more light, and glared at the wall of wood and leaves that loomed into view.

Potter emerged from the tent a few seconds later, his robes wrinkled and done up wrong. Draco glanced at him and spelled them right, which earned him a bemused look in response.

"POINT ME, DRACO MALFOY! PAROLEE MALFOY, I KNOW YOU'RE HERE, LET ME IN!"

Potter's eyes widened. "It is Percy," he confirmed, turning in place as he tried to decide which direction the shouting was coming from. "I'm going to lower the wards," he said, lifting his wand. Draco nodded his assent and drew his own wand, bracing himself. Weasley wouldn't be screaming his head off like that if he were alone, after all.

They waited a tense ten seconds or so before Weasley's pale, freckled visage came barrelling into the circle of their firelight, breathless and terrified.

"GET IT!" he shouted, racing right past them and tucking his shoulder in time to dive neatly into the safety of Draco's tent.

'It' was revealed a split second later to be a very angry bicorn. Draco had never seen a bicorn outside of books before. It was a huge, solid, bovine-like creature that somehow moved with the grace and agility of a panther, all topped off with two huge horns coming out the top of its head. Potter barely missed being gored by the right horn as it lowered its head and charged him, snarling. From the way he yelped a second later, it couldn't have missed him entirely.

"Defodio!" Draco shouted, just for something to do to distract the beast from Potter. He'd been knocked to the ground and was taking his time about getting up. The spell worked. The bicorn's angry roar near deafened Draco, who backed up and leapt out of the way just in time to avoid being impaled himself. A shield charm saved him from getting a chunk taken out of his injured shoulder when the bicorn twisted back to catch him. Only the creature's forward momentum saved Draco from being pounced on immediately.

"Get up, you need to get up," Draco urged in a frantic undertone, falling to his knees where Potter was currently leaning up on his elbow and examining his ribs. They were bleeding, and Draco blanched. He'd never been very good with the sight of blood, especially other people's.

"Working on it," Potter gritted out. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and flinched. Draco winced in sympathy and slid an arm around his waist to support him. The bicorn had finished its charge and was circling back around, snorting and growling. They didn't have time for kindness, so he stood as fluidly as possible, dragging Potter up as well and trying to brace his injured chest against Draco's own side. Draco forced himself to ignore the hitch in Potter's breathing as they straightened, and the blood that flowed onto his robes from Potter's wound.

"What sort of creature is that?" Potter asked, which answered the question of whether Potter knew any effective tactics for fighting bicorns before Draco could ask.

"It's a bicorn," Draco said shortly, tugging Potter around the tent to give them a few more moments before it spotted them again. The flicker of the fire worked in their favour, in that it made it harder for the beast to spot them immediately. "They're man-eaters. The only thing I know about them is that their horns are harvested for potion making after they fall off, when the bicorn isn't paying attention."

A huff of air gusted against Draco's neck, meaning Draco felt more than heard Potter's laugh. "So what you're saying is no one thinks it's worth trying to take one of these down even on a good day."

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Draco agreed, his eyes riveted on the edge of the tent, where he expected the bicorn to appear at any moment to finish them both off. He was sure he looked and sounded terrified, but it was only accurate. Frankly, he didn't have the mental capacity for prevarication when he was about to be mauled to death by something that deserved more X's than the Ministry had accounted for even on their most cautious day. Action needed taking, and with haste.

His grip on Potter's waist tightened, but he could think of no better options. "I'm going to get you into the tent," he told Potter. "If you stun Weasley and keep your mouth shut, I can probably do something to at least convince it to go looking somewhere else for its next meal." He'd managed it with the spiders, after all, even with Weasley screaming in his ear.

The grip Potter had on Draco's arm became almost painful. "Malfoy, no," Potter said, stiffening his spine to stand more firmly on his own two feet. "You're not doing this alone, I'm not going to let you. I'm not- I'm not Percy-"

"No, you're injured," Draco said, his voice shaking. He dragged them back to the far edge of the tent when he heard the rumble of a growl closing in on their position."You'll be of no use to me dead, Potter."

"I'm not that badly injured," Potter protested. "Look, just cast ferula and-"

"Not in my approved lexi-" Draco began.

Potter cut him off with a sharp gesture that visibly jarred his injury. "Fuck your lexicon, Draco. I won't tell anyone."

Draco exhaled. He knew he shouldn't allow it, but Potter's determination to stay and help strengthened Draco's nerve unreasonably. "Fine. Ferula." Bandages flew from Draco's wand and wrapped tightly around Potter's ribs. Shouting from within the tent had both of them straightening, Potter managing it without Draco's support.

Potter cast a spell Draco didn't recognize. His eyes widened. "It's gone into the tent. It's after Percy again. We need to get it out of there."

Draco followed Potter as he launched himself around the corner and neared the tent flap. "Or!" Draco said, grabbing Potter's arm and holding him back before he could throw himself inside. He'd had an idea. "We could leave it in there."

"With Percy?" Potter asked, rounding on Draco with some of that old, familiar outrage.

"No," Draco snapped, scowling. "Get him out instead. Then I'll fold up the tent. Problem solved."

Potter blinked. "You'll fold up the..."

"With the bicorn inside, yes," Draco explained, pushing Potter out of the way so he could peer through the tent flap without being spotted. "Avoiding a battle can still count as a victory, even to you Gryffindors, can't it? We won't be dead, anyway."

He took a deep breath as he spoke, aware that they'd been talking a bit too long. "WEASLEY! ARE YOU DEAD YET?" he shouted. The response came immediately.

"PAROLEE MALFOY, EVERY MOMENT I SPEND IN THIS WARDROBE IS ANOTHER MARK AGAINST YOU!"

Potter interrupted Draco's response with his own. "THEN GET OUT OF THE BLOODY WARDROBE, PERCY!"

"GET OUT OF THE TENT, HE MEANS!" Draco added.

"I CAN'T, IT'LL EAT ME!" Weasley bawled. "IT'S ALREADY TRYING TO GET INSIDE!"

"He's got a point there," Potter admitted. Draco agreed and opened his mouth to shout, but Potter's hand on his arm stopped him. "We're going to have it after us in a second," he pointed out. Draco subsided with frustration.

"Trust Weasley to ruin a perfectly good campsite and a perfectly good tent by being a bloody idiot," he grumbled.

"This is stupid," Potter decided, lifting his wand. "I'm going to Summon the wardrobe." Draco nodded and lifted his own wand, and Potter glanced sideways at him. "Wait, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to give it a distraction," he said. Potter's unexpected response was to grab Draco's arm and hold on tightly. He scowled. "What the bloody hell are you doing?"

"You're not going in there by yourself!" Potter ordered, and now that Draco looked at him properly, he came off a bit frantic.

"Are you mad?" Draco demanded, wrenching his arms away. "I was going to transfigure a deer or something out of one of those branches and send that in there. I don't have a death wish, Potter."

Potter let go, abashed. "Oh. That's... actually rather a good idea, yes." He waved his hand vaguely. "Go right ahead."

"Just don't tell Weasley," Draco tossed over his shoulder. "I'd have you do it, but you're shite at Transfiguration, so..."

"I'm-er... right," Potter said, and fell silent. Draco cast the charm and turned out a fairly acceptable deer, if he did say so himself. It stared at him and at Potter, wide eyed, until Draco snapped out a spell to its left that made it startle and run right- directly into the tent.

The noises from within the tent didn't bear thinking about. Draco was very relieved to be standing outside with Potter.

"Accio wardrobe," Potter intoned, wand raised, and Draco lifted his own in preparation.

The wardrobe came sailing haphazardly out through the flap, and Draco shouted, "Pack!"

The tent folded neatly into the small square of fabric that would fit right at the top of Draco's knapsack, and the two of them stared at it.

"Is it... dead, then?" Potter asked, stepping toward it when Draco did and frowning.

"No," Draco said, crouching down and tilting his head to examine the folded up tent, his heart still pounding. Some irrational corner of his mind screamed at him to back up, that the bicorn could come leaping out of those cloth folds at any moment to devour him. He forcibly shoved the thought away and stood again, dusting his hands off. "It's in wizard space. If we ever open that tent back up, it'll be waiting."

"If?" Potter echoed, and Draco shrugged.

"I was thinking of donating it to the Ministry," he said. Potter laughed, then cut himself off guiltily. The two of them looked to the wardrobe, now nothing more than splinters and failing magic that sputtered and dissipated into the darkness. Weasley's head was only just lifting from the piles of cloth and wood to glare at the pair of them. Scratches and bruises littered his face and neck, and his Ministry robes were torn in several places. He still looked better than Draco felt.

Draco lifted a fist to the sky, as was the old tradition upon completion of a Requaero. "Cumulatus," he declared, though it came out less confident than he'd intended. He glanced at Potter, who was giving him a slanted eyebrow, and let his fist drop.

"This is going in my witness testimony," Weasley muttered, beginning the long, slow process of extricating himself from Draco's robes and old wardrobe. Draco winced at the sound of silk ripping and bit down on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from doing something ill-considered.

"That he saved both of our lives?" Potter asked, his tone cutting. Weasley glanced up with surprise, and Potter scowled at him. "Good. Be sure it does. And be sure to mention that he did it despite the odds being intentionally stacked against him, because I know I'm going to."

Draco bit down on his smile when Weasley looked at him. It wouldn't do to look too smug. Instead, he said, "We should figure out sleeping arrangements for the rest of the night, now that my tent is out of service. Do you still have yours, Weasley?"

Weasley stood and shrugged the last of Draco's sadly abused robes from off his shoulders and around his ankles, and reached into his pocket.

"I only have room enough for one in my tent," he pointed out stiffly, retrieving his knapsack. "In any event, the retrieval of the prize means that my duties are completed. I will be returning to the Ministry to file my witness testimony."

"At four in the morning?" Potter asked, scowling at being described as 'the prize'. "How do you intend to get there?"

"By broom, of course," Weasley said, drawing one from his knapsack. "I trust you both brought one?"

Draco's forward movement was halted by Potter's arm against his chest. Probably Potter was right. Probably for the best if he didn't strangle Witness Weasley right after completing his stupid quest. Probably it would look bad.

But still.

"We have a broom," Potter said, one hand still firmly on Draco's chest, the other wrapped tightly around his wrist and hidden in their robes so Weasley wouldn't see. He seemed to realize that Draco hadn't quite talked himself out of physical violence yet. "We'll meet you there, how's that?"

"The Ministry is currently closed," Weasley sniffed, eyeing Draco with disdain from the safety on the other side of Potter's arm. His eyes said things like 'Restrain yourself, Parolee Malfoy', and 'This will be in my witness testimony'. "I will meet both of you at six am precisely in the Atrium."

"Right," Potter said. He glanced at Draco, who met his eyes with a tight smile, and added, "Er, cumulatus."

"Cumulatus," Weasley echoed, mounting his broom. With no further fuss, he kicked off and maneuvered carefully through the branches of the canopy to open air.

The noise that came out of Draco's throat sounded alarmingly like a snarl, even to his own ears, and he took a deep breath. He shouldn't want to murder Weasleys. He was better than that these days. The world was better than that, after the war. He wasn't like his father or Grandfather Abraxas, slipping sneakily disguised Dark artifacts into shopping bags in Diagon Alley in the hopes of ridding himself of insurmountable, freckly annoyances, no. He was, dare he say it, more of a humanitarian than that. Even though-

"So... since we have to be at the Ministry in two hours..." Potter began with uncharacteristic hesitance. Draco halted his Weasley-centered internal diatribe and looked at him. He was holding his own broom now, fidgeting with the handle. "I thought maybe we could... get something to eat together?"

"At four in the morning?" Draco asked, confused. "Nothing's open at four am."

Potter looked sheepish and bizarrely hopeful. "Well, nothing in the wizarding world. You could get that full meal you've been talking about."

"You want me to go to some seedy muggle diner with you in the middle of the night?" Draco summarized, still baffled. "Why?"

"Well," Potter said. He was turning inexplicably red, which meant Draco was now staring. The scrutiny only increased Potter's embarrassment, and his next words rushed together. "Nothing else to do, right? We could go somewhere nicer next time."

"Ne-" Draco stopped and blinked. Tilted his head. "Potter, is this-?" Potter glanced away, shrugging, and Draco began to smirk. "You're asking me out to dinner, aren't you?"

"It's really more breakfast at this hour-" Potter hedged, still flushed. Attractively flushed, Draco decided.

"The sentiment is the same, I think," Draco told him, charmed. "Is this what it's like to be a Gryffindor, then?"

Potter's brow furrowed. "Pardon?"

"You know," Draco said, warming to his topic. "I saved the damsel from the tower, and at the end of the quest, I got the... well, the boy, in this case, but you'll do." He slid his hand into Potter's as he spoke. "Very Gryffindor, all of it."

The pleased expression on Potter's face lasted only so long as it took him to register Draco's words. "Malfoy, if you call me a damsel one more time-" he warned, but Draco stopped him with one lifted hand.

"Alright, alright, I understand." He turned his head and spoke directly into Potter's ear, his lips deliberately brushing skin. "Allons manger mauvaise cuisine, mon demoiselle," he said.

Potter's expression was torn between intrigue and suspicion. Draco smiled innocently back.

He didn't expect Potter to respond with a long, drawn out hiss, but Parseltongue would admittedly probably win him this particular battle.

"Er, what did you say?" Draco asked, blinking rapidly. He cleared his throat and ignored Potter's satisfied smile.

"I said, 'shut up and get on the broom,'" Potter told him, swinging one leg over it himself. Draco secured his knapsack and followed suit, settling his hands at Potter's hips. He ignored the small hitch in Potter's breathing when one of his fingers found bare skin, and did it again.

They took off, leaving their disaster of a campsite behind them and narrowly missing a wide branch when Draco leaned in closer and spoke into Potter's ear, saying, "Next time you can cook me breakfast yourself."

* * *

 _A/N: The French Draco speaks means, 'Let's go eat bad food, my damsel.'_  
 _This story kicked my ass. I got to the halfway point, thought I was finished, then abruptly realised there was a whole other part of the story I hadn't told. I hope you enjoy it! I should warn curious bystanders that I have never written romance before, let alone drarry. Feedback is incredibly welcome!_  
 _(It also bears mentioning, to those of you who will be quite unhappy with me for posting this instead of a new chapter of either of my WIPs, that I'm almost there! This helped get me out of a writing funk. So it's a good thing!)_


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